Hello and welcome to the 2025 CM Cup! As ever, I’m not certain how much interest there is to anybody outside of the 22 participants so we’re sticking with the presentation from last year. Thank you to everybody who took part, the format was similar to last year which is quicker but probably not as immersive as the good old days.

2025 CM Cup

The 2025 CM Cup is the 9th edition of the Championship Manager Cup, more commonly known as the CM Cup. Matches were played out on Zoom in December 2025 because Dave remains an unorganised fool and left it too late. Many thanks to Rob “Taitanator” Tait for doing the database for this year.

The 2025 edition saw us retain the “winner stays on” format of 2024. All 22 players were randomly assigned an entrance number and a team. The players drawing one and two would play each other, with the winner staying on and playing participant 3, so on and so forth.

The last surviving team will play a one off final against the team that clocked up the most eliminations to determine the 2025 champions.

The tournament was played out under 5 a side rules, with Masters Football being the theme. That meant all 22 Teams were made up of players aged 35 and over. Only 5 players were on the pitch for each team, with up to 5 subs. A goalkeeper had to be named and wasn’t allowed to play outfield.

Qualification

There were 22 competitors in the 2025 CM Cup. Qualification was achieved by invitation and was issued to a mixture of site contributors, fans of the game and all round good eggs. It was the same invite list as last year but one person didn’t reply, so missed out.

Teams this year were squads of 10, all aged over 35. Ability was distributed evenly across the squads.

Squads

All teams have a blue home kit and a red away kit (blue and red bibs, you see). All grey players can be ignored, all injuries were cleared by the time the tournament started and you can basically ignore everything aside from the names. Click each one to make it larger.

Final Draw

The draw to match the participants to a football team was made on 9th December 2025. Myself (Dave) and professional hype man Ross Bell oversaw proceedings. You can watch the draw here but it will spoil the entrants order, so if you want to be surprised then maybe give that a swerve.

Gav was the defending champion.

The runners and riders:

Player	Twitter/X	Previous Appearances
Andrew Chapman	@KingOfTheRooks	8
Dan Williamson	@winkveron	8 (2017 Winner)
Ross Bell	@RossBell__	7 (2019 Winner)
Deano	@Emsonite	4
Nathan	@FMCM_FC	5
Tom Rostance	@TJRostance	6
Nick Rowe	@NTR9798	5
Zak	@CornishZak	5
Nikolai	@9798Nikolai	5
Andrew Walker	@footballacumen	5
Dan Williams	@S4ooter	6
Jakob	@Williewrap	5
FPLHints	@FPLHints	7 (2018 Winner)
Matt Wills	@Matt_C_Wills	7
Rob Tait	@Taitanator	7 (2020 Winner)
Dave Mathieson	@DaveMathieson84	6 (2021 Winner)
Charlemagne	@9798V2	4
Gary	@Retrofootballnw	3 (2023 Winner)
Gavin Greaves	@goatnmcl	2 (2024 Winner)
Shales	@PES_DNA	3
Stu’s Footy Flash	@Stusfootyflash	3 (2022 Winner)
Philip Verbist	@Verbist_Philip	4

We shall now hear The Quinn’s Speech to officially begin the tournament:

The Results

Starting us off were Ross and Dan Williams (S4ooter). This will be quite vague, so you’ll get the lineup of the new team and the result.

Ross Bell vs S4ooter

Poor Dan got delayed and got given the special ultra defensive treatment.

Ross advances.

S4ooter has been eliminated

Ross Bell vs KOTR

An all blog squad affair up next. Ross got off to a great start and Andrew came very close to clawing it back but it was a deficit too much. Ross marches on.

KingOfTheRooks has been eliminated

Ross vs Winkveron

Another who couldn’t make it, 2017 winner Dan Williamson was no match for the Bell express.

Winkveron has been eliminated

Ross vs Verbist

Shelling peas for Ross at this point as another no show was brushed aside.

Philip Verbist has been eliminated

Ross vs Nick (NTR9798)

Nick presented a new challenge for Ross but it didn’t stop him going 4-0 up. A revival from Nick came all too late, Ross making a good effort at racking up the most victories.

Nick Rowe has been eliminated

Ross vs Stusfootyflash

A very close one here but Maurice Malpas’ efforts were in vain.

Stusfootyflash has been eliminated

Ross vs Gav

The champ is here! Gav arrived with a Chris Kamara based tactic and Kopke and Baresi trying to hold it together at the back.

They did not.

Gav Greaves has been eliminated

Ross vs Tom Rostance

Not many words required here. An absolute battering.

Tom Rostance has been eliminated

Ross vs Dave Mathieson

Another former champion in Dave Mathieson will have been licking his lips when Ross was reduced to 4 men, even with the score at 2-0. Dave did get one back but there’s no denying Ross in this form.

Dave Mathieson has been eliminated

Ross vs FPLHints

Another former champion! Ash couldn’t make it despite his best efforts and was set up to hang on for a draw.

They didn’t manage either.

FPLHints has been eliminated

Ross vs Nikolai

All good things come to and end. Ross couldn’t quite come back against tactics king Nikolai but with 10 victories, he is almost certainly in the final.

Ross Bell has been eliminated

Nikolai vs Rob Tait

Rob Tait was next, another former winner and he saw his side dig deep to come from behind to eliminate Nikolai.

Nikolai has been eliminated

Rob Tait vs Nath

Nath was next, and chasing the game he brought on Tony Cascarino and put everybody up front. The results were disastrous.

Nath Gent has been eliminated

Rob Tait vs Matt Wills

It took another blog squad member in Matt Wills to end Rob’s mini-run. Despite an early lead the lesser known Campilongo netted a hat-trick to see Matt through.

Rob Tait has been eliminated

Matt Wills vs Andrew Walker

Stalwart of these events Andrew Walker was next and the delightfully named Fuckala was at the double to end Matt’s challenge.

Matt Wills has been eliminated

Andrew Walker vs Shales

Here comes Shales or PES_DNA if you prefer. Fuckala was at it again to ensure that Shales will win f….nevermind.

PES_DNA has been eliminated

Andrew Walker vs RetroFootballNw

Next up we had Gary, who won this event a couple of years ago. One of the oddest games of the tournament saw 4-man Gary win the game very late on thanks to everybody’s favourite Iceland re-gen (or pre-gen in this case!) What was absolute remarkable, and I don’t recall seeing this before, is that for the winning goal Neville Southall played the through ball. Maybe this happens with Long Ball and I’ve just never noticed…

Andrew Walker has been eliminated

Retrofootballnw vs Jakob

Jakob, all the way from Denmark, was next. He took the lead against Gary, twice in fact and survived a penalty but John Wark of all people headed in an equaliser before Mr Iceland won it late on. Mike Duxbury, brought on to help in the last half hour, lasted 10 minutes before seeing red.

Jakob has been eliminated

RetroFnw vs Zak

Blogger Zak was next in line. His side put up a great fight but eventually succumbed to Peter Pacult.

Zak Brockman has been eliminated

Retrofootballnw vs Deano

Deano was well fancied with the McCoist and Waddle partnership. They both scored but they conceded 8…

Deano has been eliminated

Retrofootballnw vs Charlemagne

So with last man standing rules, the winner of this match would play Ross in the final. It looked like Pacult has snatched it but Birch stepped off the bench to equalise and take Charle through.

RetroFootballNw has been eliminated

Charle V2 was the last man standing!

The Final: Ross Bell vs Charle V2

Two sides with very different paths to this stage. 10 wins to 1 but them’s the rules. Birch was again the difference, his two early goals and “final boss” the Micker sealed the win.

Charle V2 won the 2025 CM Cup!

Statistics

Entrance	Manager	Team	Eliminated By	Eliminated #
1	Dan Williams	Williams West End	Ross Bell	1	0
2	Ross Bell	Bell’s Bushwackers	Nikolai	11	10
3	KingOfTheRooks	KOTR’s Frauds	Ross Bell	2	0
4	Dan Williamson	Wink’s Walkers	Ross Bell	3	0
5	Philip Verbist	Verbist’s Villans	Ross Bell	4	0
6	Nick Rowe	Rowe’s Rangers	Ross Bell	5	0
7	Stu’s Footyflash	Stu’s Steamers	Ross Bell	6	0
8	Gav	Gav’s Gophers	Ross Bell	7	0
9	Tom Rostance	Rostance’s Rebels	Ross Bell	8	0
10	Dave Mathieson	Mathieson’s Mavericks	Ross Bell	9	0
11	FPL Hints	FPL Hints FC	Ross Bell	10	0
12	Nikolai	Nikolai’s Next Big Thing	Rob Tait	12	1
13	Rob Tait	Tait-ies Spuds	Matt Wills	14	2
14	Nath	Nath’s Nukes	Rob Tait	13	0
15	Matt Wills	Will’s Wanderers	Andrew Walker	15	1
16	Andrew Walker	Andrew’s Albion	Retrofootballnw	17	2
17	Shales	Shale’s Sharks	Andrew Walker	16	0
18	Retrofootballnw	RetroFootball FC	Charle	21	4
19	Jakob	Jakob’s Juggernauts	Retrofootballnw	18	0
20	Zak	Brockman’s Bruisers	Retrofootballnw	19	0
21	Deano	Deano’s Dynamites	Retrofootballnw	20	0
22	Charle	Charle’s V2		Last Man Standing	1

Summary

That’s it all over for another year. I hope you enjoyed or at least tolerated this experiment. Next year will likely be back to normal, in the summer. Thanks as ever for taking part and/or reading not just this today but the whole year round. We’ll be back with more fun next year. Have a great Christmas everybody, all the best.